Missing
by Xx starlight-moon xX
Summary: Songfic, 500 words not including lyrics , for the challenge on xoxLewrahxox's Forum. The morning after Andromeda's abandonment, Cissy searches for her sister.


**A / N : Songfic, for the challenge on xoxLewrahxox's Forum. **

_**Prompt: Songfics. Choose a song that you feel relates to the Death Eaters and their families, or the HP world in general. Write a 100-word or 500-word drabble inspired by the song. It might be a good idea to provide the lyrics that inspired you.**_

**I have to admit, I'm not really that into songfics. Adorning fics with the odd lyric or stealing titles for my fics isn't anything new, but actual, proper songfics are slightly more challenging. It's difficult, trying to intersperse the lyrics with the fic. Kudos to everyone else who participated . . . !**

**Anyway, this is my best attempt. (I don't use the Black Family Tree and have Andromeda as older than Bella in all my fics, so sorry if that offends or seems a little odd. Cissy is eleven here, Bella fourteen.) The song is 'Missing' by Evanescence. I think my version might be a little different to the usual one, so apologies if the lyrics are different in any way. (I have definitely heard a version somewhere with more strings . . . ) Enjoy, and if you read, please review. **

**(Oh bloody hell. Document Manager has messed up all my lovely line breaks, AND my pretty centering. Argh. Please let me know if it's now totally illegible - I can't seem to fix it, no matter what I do. Clicking "save" seems to have progressively more disastrous results each time I try. *sighs heavily* )**

* * *

_Please, please forgive me_

_But I won't be home again_

* * *

September 1st.

She shouldn't have woken so early, of course, but there was little point in trying to sleep.

She is gone.

_Gone_.

Cissy shivers. She sits on the end of her bed, plaiting her hair. The house-elf seems to have gone into hiding, and the room is filled with thin grey light, the drapes still drawn.

* * *

_Maybe someday you'll look up_

_And barely conscious you'll say to no-one_

_'Isn't something missing?'_

* * *

Narcissa has never opened her own curtains before, and she does not intend to start today.

She is wearing her new uniform.

She slips off the bed and tries to hold her head up straight, ignoring the crackle in her collar.

There is too much starch in it. She _told_ them there was too much starch in it.

* * *

_You won't cry for my absence I know_

_You forgot me long ago._

_Am I that unimportant?_

_Am I so insignificant?_

_Isn't someone missing me?_

* * *

Bella's room is empty. Her trunk is on the floor, books and robes thrown pell-mell on top of each other, like the components of a badly concocted potion. Her window has been thrown wide, curtains billowing in the breeze, and the first autumn leaves have chosen to fall here - russett red and yellow-tinged, strewn across the carpet.

They crack beneath Cissy's feet, small staccato shivers.

* * *

_Even though I'm the sacrifice_

_You won't try for me, not now_

_Though I'd die to know you love me_

_I'm all alone. _

_Isn't someone missing me?_

* * *

Narcissa finds her sister in Andromeda's room.

She is sitting on Andy's bed, arms wound tightly around her knees, staring at the opposite wall as though she can't see it all.

Cissy takes a deep breath and steps into the empty room, picking her way through the debris – through powdered glass and splintered wood, over torn pages and ripped robes and twisted hairpins.

It is all here. Almost all of it.

She didn't pack quickly enough. She can't have, because here are photographs, shredded into crude caricature. There are earrings, her favourites, pressed into the carpet, bent out of shape beneath Bella's heel. There is her jewellery box, silent - smashed in two halves upon the floor.

There are scorch marks in the wall, and ash from a long-dead fire blown thick as snow across the carpet.

They stand in the rubble of Andromeda's life.

Bella has never been this angry. _Never_.

It scares her.

* * *

_Please please forgive me_

_But I won't be home again_

_I know what you do to yourself_

_I breathe deep and cry out_

_Isn't something missing?_

* * *

"B – Bella," she stammers.

Her sister does not blink. She seems to have been frozen.

Cissy shivers.

There are things she wants to say to her.

_Make her come back. _

_Make it go away, the horrible Muggle boy and the baby that isn't right . . . _

But there is little point.

Bella does not know how to fix. Only how to break.

Cissy hugs herself. _Break __**them**__,_ she thinks spitefully.

Bella says nothing – gives no indication she can see her at all – but her arm shoots forward, unexpectedly, and her fingers curl around Narcissa's forearm.

Cissy cries out in pain. She has half-forgotten how to feel.

Tighter and tighter . . . Bella's nails draw blood, and then Cissy throws her arms around her sister and buries her face in her neck.

_**I **still love you, _she thinks.

It is not enough. It has never been enough.

But for once, Bella does not even attempt to pry her off.

* * *

_Even though I'm the sacrifice_

_You won't try for me, not now_

_Though I'd die to know you love me_

_I'm all alone._

_(Isn't someone missing me?)_


End file.
